MORE than 150 bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States have called on Americans to stand up for their values and take action over the crisis that has led to the killing of two citizens in Minnesota.
Alex Prett (News, 30 January) and Renee Good (Comment, 16 January), both aged 37, were shot two weeks apart during protests against the immigration raids under way in the state and across the country.
An open letter, signed by 154 bishops and published by the conservative news outlet Fox News, says: “What happened a week ago in Minnesota, and is happening in communities across the country, runs counter to God’s vision of justice and peace. This crisis is about more than one city or state — it’s about who we are as a nation. The question before us is simple and urgent: Whose dignity matters?”
The bishops urge Americans to “trust their moral compass — and to question rhetoric that trades in fear rather than truth. This is a moment for action. We call on people of faith to stand by your values and act as your conscience demands.
“Safety built on fear is an illusion. True safety comes when we replace fear with compassion, violence with justice, and unchecked power with accountability. That’s the vision our faith calls us to live out — and the promise our country is meant to uphold.”
Their letter calls for the immediate suspension of the ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minnesota and other states, and for “transparent investigation” into the killings. President Trump has suggested that he will de-escalate the immigration raids in Minnesota in the wake of outrage over the shootings.
Two federal agents have been identified as the shooters of Mr Pretti. Both were part of Operation Metro Surge, an immigration crackdown that was launched in Minneapolis in December.
After days of protest, and counter-claims from the Trump administration about what happened in both shootings, the government announced that it had opened a federal civil-rights investigation of the shooting of Mr Pretti. An FBI investigation is under way into the shooting of Ms Good, but local officials say they have been cut out of the investigation and have raised concerns about its direction.
A video of many of the bishops reading the letter has also been released. They urge Americans to choose hope, to allow “this season of grief [to] become a season of renewal”.
The Presiding Bishop, Dr Sean Rowe, has also written his own pastoral letter to all congregations, calling for Christians to donate to an emergency fund to support ministry to migrant communities; $20,000 has been sent from church funds to support Casa Maria, a ministry of the diocese of Minnesota which offers food, clothes, and company to the vulnerable.
The ministry is run from St Nicholas’s in Richfield, a Minneapolis suburb. Its usual 100 clients have leapt to 500 families, as migrants are too fearful to go outside to shop. Volunteers deliver food and gift cards directly to homes. Other volunteers keep watch over the church’s food pantry, on the alert for ICE agents.
Dr Rowe said that he would call all Christians to prayer, fasting, and the giving of money, in a Lenten initiative to focus on “justice, reconciliation, and love during divisive times”.
An Episcopal church in New York is holding free pop-up immigration legal clinics, helping asylum-seekers to apply for work permits. The clinic at St Bartholomew’s, Manhattan, is being run in partnership with the group New York Legal Assistance, an immigration social-service ministry from a church in East Harlem, and with the diocese of New York.
As of 8 January, 68,990 migrants and asylum-seekers were in ICE custody, according to the latest ICE and Customs and Border Protection data compiled by NBC News Service.
Hundreds of faith leaders and protesters joined in a nationwide day of protest on Friday. In Minnesota, a group protested outside a federal building in sub-zero temperatures. The demonstration included dozens of clergy protesting against federal charges brought against people who had peacefully observed ICE raids in an act of solidarity with their migrant neighbours.
